Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method and a system for estimating the load acting on a tire.
Description of the Related Art
Incorporating electronic monitoring devices within tires is becoming increasingly important in order to increase the vehicle safety.
Such devices may, for example, include sensors and other components adapted to obtain information relating to various quantities of a tire such as for example, temperature, pressure, acceleration, number of tire revolutions, vehicle speed, load acting on the tire and the like.
H. Holscher at al. (“Modeling of Pneumatic Tires by a Finite Element Model for the Development a Tire Friction Remote Sensor”, preprint submitted to Computers and Structures, pages 1-17, 28 Oct. 2004) describe a tire curvature sensor for determining the actual load of a tire for a given pressure or for determining whether the pressure of a tire is correct for the actual load.
The Applicant faced the technical problem of determining the load acting on a tire without the need of explicitly knowing the tire inflation pressure.
This in order to eliminate the need of having a direct pressure sensor within a tire monitoring device and obtaining advantages in terms of reduction of the number of sensors used by the monitoring device and, thus, of the costs, overall dimensions and energy consumption of the monitoring device.
A pressure sensor of the direct type is typically provided with a membrane exposed to the air, which involves problems of assembly, strength and reliability of the monitoring device.
Therefore, elimination of such a sensor also allows simplifying the assembly of the monitoring device and providing a sealed, strong and reliable monitoring device.